


Bury Me Till I Confess

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Inspired by Music, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4831409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock rescues Irene from a predicament and Irene attempts to recapture what happened the last time they were in this situation. However, as Sherlock is in a relationship with someone who he cares deeply for, Irene can’t entice him, and the two of them have an interesting conversation instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bury Me Till I Confess

**Author's Note:**

> So a while back I got a prompt to write an explicit fic based on the song lyrics to "Uma Thurman" by Fall Out Boy and couldn't manage to make it work. However, I actually listened to the song for the first time last week and it inspired this fic, which I hope my anonymous prompter is all right with since I no longer write explicit fic. Enjoy!

  
_I can move mountains_  
_I can work a miracle, work a miracle_  
_Oh, oh, keep you like an oath_  
_May nothing but death do us part_

_She wants to dance like Uma Thurman_  
_Bury me till I confess_  
_She wants to dance like Uma Thurman_  
_And I can't get you out of my head_  
** Fall Out Boy, “Uma Thurman” **  


He had to pull another miracle out of his hat, it seemed. The infamous Woman needed his help. She’d gotten into a scrape, her real identity had become known, and she needed an extraction. Would he be a dear? He hated owing her a favor. But her help had been vital while he had been playing dead himself, so he owed her, and he was not one to leave favors unrepaid.

So now they were in a hotel room, the scene rather reminiscent of the night after he had rescued her the last time. Though he did know the outcome would be different. For one, he had no interest sharing his bed with her again. His mind, his heart and his body belonged to someone else now, and no amount of Irene showing off her feminine wiles was going to change that. And she was trying, with the radio turned up to some pop rock hit that incorporated a television theme he vaguely recalled from his childhood. Her hips were swaying in time with the music, and he supposed he should have been paying attention to them, admiring them, but he wanted to see another woman bopping around to music, feel another woman’s hips under his hands. He shut his eyes to ignore Irene and imagined her instead, the feel of his fingers at her waist before he slid them around to the small of her back to hold her close. No, this was a bad idea. He would have to wait until he had privacy, until Irene was safely delivered to her new handler, when he could imagine the woman who had captured his very soul in his arms, or even doing other, more pleasurable things.

“It’s no fun trying to entice you if you don’t look,” Irene said, and he cracked open an eye to see she was pouting.

“It’s because I don’t want to be enticed,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve moved on.”

“Well, it’s not with the woman the tabloids had a field day with,” Irene said, making her way towards his bed. She had her own perfectly good bed, so why she didn’t go sit on that he didn’t know. She sat on the edge of his and he glared. “Your housekeeper is much too old, unless you have a mommy kink, which I highly doubt you do. Which leaves the pathologist, unless you’ve made inroads on your brother’s assistant.” His glare intensified and her smile got wider. “Pathologist it is, then. Molly, right?”

“Yes,” he grumbled.

Irene frowned. “Oh, you’re _quite_ upset you’re not with her right now,” she said, placing her hand on his thigh and tapping her fingers. “So that means you’re either in the honeymoon stage of your relationship still, you’ve just moved in together, or I caused you to miss an anniversary of some sort.” She thought for a moment as she tapped, which was getting quite irritating. He jerked away from her, rolling over onto his side. “Considering the slight strain against your zipper that happened _after_ you shut your eyes and stopped watching me I’d say you're still in the honeymoon stage.”

“Wrong,” he said, cursing his body for having a physical reaction to imagining having Molly close. He was usually better at keeping the physical signs at bay. “If this takes much longer I’ll miss our one year anniversary. We’d planned to go to Paris, since she’s wanted to go, but I doubt we’ll get to keep our hotel.”

“Oh, Paris is quite lovely,” she said, getting off the bed. He hoped she’d drop the subject but she popped around to the other side, squatting in front of him. “Borrow my apartment there. Stay as long as you like.”

He raised an eyebrow. “For all intents and purposes, Irene Adler is dead.”

“Yes, but Kate Ellis is not, and she inherited all of my property, and she knows I’m not _really_ dead,” Irene said with a smile that wasn’t seductive or in any way catty or cruel. It was…almost friendly, he’d wager. “Sherlock, I had you. I had my wicked way with you and we both walked away and that was that. There doesn’t need to be a repeat of those events.” She crossed her arms and set them on the bed, resting her chin on them. “Are you happy with your pathologist?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

“Do you love her?”

“Yes,” he said, once again without hesitation.

“Good. I am not a person who can love, or wants love, but I am happy for those who have found it.” Then she stood up. “I’ll make arrangements through your brother for my apartment in Paris to be made available for you and your girlfriend to use. I think you’ll like it. It has a wonderful view of the city, and it’s in a very nice section of Paris, near all sorts of interesting things to do.”

He studied her. “Why are you doing this?” he asked warily.

She shrugged slightly. “I’m a changed woman, Sherlock, just like you’re a changed man. It’s what time does to people. Either you change and grow or you stagnate and become bitter. And I don’t want to become bitter. I want to enjoy this second chance at life I was given. I want to love life, even if I don’t love someone.” 

She went back and turned the music up and began to dance again as a new song came on, and after a moment he shook his head and picked up his mobile before heading into the loo. He had the feeling no matter how many years he knew Irene, no matter how often he tried to deduce her or how often he studied her he would never truly understand her. But perhaps that was all right. Perhaps that was the way it was meant to be.


End file.
